The Nation - News from May 6, 1988

The Department of Transportation, linking “a hard core of drug users” among railroad workers to recent train accidents, moved to require random drug testing for workers involved in operating trains. Transportation Secretary James H. Burnley IV said at a Washington news conference that the department also will seek to crack down on drunken driving by commercial bus and truck drivers. Burnley said he has grown tired of waiting for Congress to enact random drug testing. But Lawrence Mann, attorney for the Railway Labor Executives’ Assn., said in an interview that the proposed rule was unconstitutional in that it appeared to arbitrarily place the burden on workers “without reasonable suspicion of anything.” The Supreme Court currently is considering a federal appeals court decision outlawing all drug tests on rail workers, a decision Burnley called “absurd.”